In the article below, Dr. Dotson provides more information about Obamacare.
The program is not what its supporters or its critics imagine. In my opinion,
with Republicans blocking a single-payer national health system, the Obama White
House went to the insurance lobby and said, "give us a health care bill that you
can get Congress to pass." The result is a complex system of taxes, penalties,
and government subsidized private health insurance policies with a layer of
profits added to the costs of new levels of bureaucracy.

Nomi Prins reports that the
claim is laughable that Obamacare
will lower costs by creating competitive insurance premiums, because of
consolidations and mergers of insurance companies in preparation for the
"insurance exchanges." Wall Street is already making money off the mergers. What
Obamacare really does is to allow concentration and control of health care by
large corporations that will sacrifice health care to private profits.

Dr. Dotson believes that Obamacare will result in Medicare being blended into
some type of corporatist insurance product bringing higher costs and fewer
benefits to patients. It will be a "health system" that funnels federal revenues
into insurance company profits instead of into health care.

The unexpected consequences of Obamacare are likely to require endless
amendments to the legislation. The complexity will result in mistakes by doctors
and hospitals that will be prosecuted as crimes. Health care for patients and
adequate payment to health care providers will become back burner concerns.

Once Obamacare is up and running, the private and bureaucratic interests that
benefit from the monstrosity will protect it regardless of its failure. It would
have been so much better, so much cheaper, and so much simpler to have created a
single-payer national health service like every other developed country.
Instead, "superpower americans" are to be deprived of good and inexpensive
health care for the sole sake of corporate profits.

Obamacare -- The Tax Man Cometh ~ Robert S. Dotson,
M.D.

"I think you should send us the biggest transport plane
you have, and take this thing to
the Arctic or somewhere and drop it where it will never thaw."-
Lieutenant Dave in the Sci-Fi Classic, "The Blob"

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With the confusion accompanying the passage of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) and its on-going implementation, it
has not been easy to discern its real meaning for those covered by it.
Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates alike have kicked the
disinformation machines into high gear. In what follows I will try to identify
some of its ramifications.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)
have continued to periodically release estimates of the costs of PPACA. Their
most recent cost estimates for current provisions in the legislation (July 2012)
indicate that the insurance coverage provisions of Obamacare will have a net
cost of $1.168 trillion from 2012-2022. Government projections usually
underestimate costs. We were told that the war in Iraq would be essentially
self-financing and that the banks only needed a few hundred billion to protect
them from collapse. Many thousands of billions of dollars have been shoveled at
both to date and the end is not in sight.

The CBO says that the new health care law raises taxes by more than $1
trillion. The individual mandate (which the CBO refers to as a "penalty tax")
will produce $55 billion in "penalty payments for uninsured individuals". The
"additional hospital insurance tax" is the largest tax increase in Obamacare and
is projected to bring in $318 billion in new revenues. Supposedly, this tax
mainly hits "high-income taxpayers" (individuals making over $125,000/year and
households over $250,000/year). Other money comes from: "associated effects of
coverage provisions on tax revenues" ($216 billion); "reinsurance and risk
adjustment collections" ($184 billion); fees on certain manufacturers and
insurers ($165 billion); "penalty payments by employers" ($106 billion); "other
revenue provisions" ($87 billion); and, an excise tax (40%!) on high-premium
insurance plans ($111 billion).

Americans are holding on to the fairy tale that someone else will be paying
these taxes -- those rich pharmaceutical and insurance companies, for instance.
In fact, all costs will be passed along to consumers/patients in the form of
higher premiums and higher costs for drugs and medical devices. According to the
Cato Institute, the top 1% of income earners can expect tax hikes of up to
$52,000/year, but the bottom 99% will also feel the pain -- and lack the
discretionary income to absorb the taxes.

There are at least twenty new taxes included in PPACA. Seven of them will
directly impact the people whose taxes Obama promised not to raise: those making
less than $250,000 per household. Below is a summary of the new taxes on the
middle class:

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1. The Individual Mandate Tax -- In 2014 this penalty will hit all
Americans who are not covered by a private health insurance policy, Medicaid,
Medicare, of other public insurance program. The penalty requires a couple to
pay the higher of a base tax of $1,360/year, or 2.5% of adjusted growth income
(AGI). In 2016 the cost of not being part of Obamacare is $695 for individuals
and $2,085 for families.

2. The Medicine Cabinet Tax -- This tax (begun in 2011) prohibits
reimbursement of expenses for over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, with the
exception of insulin, from an employee's Health Saving Account (HSA), Flexible
Spending Account (FSA), or Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). This impacts the
shrinking middle class hard, since they earn enough to actually pay federal
taxes, but not enough to make this a negligible restriction. This is also
another backdoor attempt to block access to alternative medicines (vitamins and
nutritional supplements).

3. The FSA Cap -- This tax scheduled to begin in 2013 is potentially one of
the most harmful to middle class people, as it imposes a cap of $2,500/year
(it's now unlimited) on the amount of pre-tax dollars that can be deposited in
these accounts. Why so harmful? It is because funds in these accounts can be
used for special needs education for special needs children. Tuition rates for
such special education can readily exceed $14,000/year and the use of pre-tax
dollars has helped many families over the years.

4. The Medical Itemized Deduction Hurdle -- Presently, one must have medical
itemized deductions of greater than 7.5% to deduct them on federal income taxes.
Obamacare raises the bar to 10% of AGI beginning in 2013.

5. The HSA Withdrawal Tax -- This tax increases the additional tax on early
non-medical withdrawals from these types of accounts from 10% to 20% in
2013.

6. The Indoor Tanning Services Tax -- Begun in 2010, this provision added a
10% excise tax on people using tanning salons. Some may consider this minor, but
it is another attempt by the Ruling Elite to control the behavior of the
peasants and, I believe, to put a road block to accessing beneficial light
therapy for many people. Space does not permit exploring this much further here,
but suffice it to say that there are many potential health benefits from the use
of tanning beds when properly used. A variety of conditions, from depression
(Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD) and related mood disorders to psoriasis,
are improved by the judicious use of tanning type beds. I can hear my
Dermatology colleagues groaning now, but the over-reaction to increases in skin
cancers by banning tanning beds and slathering often-toxic sunscreen on everyone
has led to an even worse epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency, in my opinion. The
latter problem, of course, can be directly linked to explosions in the numbers
of Type II diabetics, cancers of many types, and respiratory infections (such
as, influenza).

Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments. His book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available here. His latest book, How America Was Lost, has just been released and can be ordered here.